Physical characteristics (or print media attributes) of print media include such aspects as thickness, weight, color, reflectivity, translucency, capacity to absorb ink or toner, speed at which ink or toner dries, etc. These characteristics may affect the quality of printed output. Accordingly, configuration settings on a printer are typically adjusted or fine-tuned to produce optimal print quality based on the values of these physical characteristics.
In addition, one manufactures A4 size paper may have one set of generic physical characteristics, while another manufactures A4 size paper may have a different set of generic physical characteristics. Furthermore, with multi-functional peripheral and other printers (i.e., image forming apparatuses) providing print on demand capabilities, it is common for printers and/or image forming apparatuses to print on various types of print media. Users often customize printers by changing printer configuration settings using a user interface. The user interface may be associated with a print console, print controller, or provided on the user's computer through a print driver. In addition, the printer can be customized to suit individual preferences and/or tailored to the task at hand.
Print quality is also dependent to a large extent on generic physical characteristics of the print medium used. Today, print media has a number of variables including thickness of the print media, its translucency, reflectivity, and other physical properties impact the quality of print output. Accordingly, printer configuration must also be changed based on the type of print media being used. Because print media is typically mass-produced individual variations in media characteristics will be minimal and can be ignored. Therefore, many physical media characteristics may be treated as generic for a particular media product and a printer may be configured appropriately, when that media product is used.
Unfortunately, such configuration changes are not always easy for users to make. Moreover, given the many types of print media available, selecting the right configuration settings may involve a lot of trial and error leading to a waste of time and resources. Moreover, there is no easy way for a user to determine and/or specify the characteristics of the print media used so that an optimal configuration setting can be determined.
For most image forming apparatuses (i.e., printers) users only need to set paper weight and paper size. However, in the printing business, actually there are many more attributes like paper color, coating, grain direction, printing technology, brightness, CIE (International Commission on Illumination), Tint, whiteness, labColor, etc., which are required to obtain the highest quality output. To have all paper attributes correctly entered into the image forming apparatus or copier requires a certain level of knowledge and training for a user.
In order to make this process easy and accurate for most users to perform, it would be desirable to have a method and system for image forming apparatus or MFP (multi-function printer), which scans a package cover and/or barcode on the cover of the package of print media and processes the scanned data and matches the package of print media with print media attributes. The print media attributes are preferably retrieved from one or more cloud servers that host a print media attribute database. In addition, the print media database preferably serves multiple networked copiers and printers (i.e., image forming apparatuses), which are located all over the world, and which can effectively provide the necessary print attributes for each and every type of print and/or paper media.